Wednesday, February 16, 2011

The Time Travel Reporting Center

The light in the sky shown white, far from the greens and reds Jake saw during the great Aurora Borealis of 2004.

Jake, 15, stood outside his parents home in the Lake of the Ozarks, Mo., around 10 p.m. May 28, leaning against a truck and looking into the night. He’d been to the local premiere of the climate change disaster movie “The Day After Tomorrow” with high school friends and just wanted a glimpse of the northern lights before going to bed.

He didn’t know his life was about to change.

“A bright white glow suddenly filled the northern horizon,” he said. “This looked nothing like the northern lights, nor did it behave like them either.”

The white light moved “almost like a light on a photo scanner.” The single bar of brightness moved from west to east over Jake’s head and disappeared.

“I thought that I should maybe go inside at this time, and found myself unable to move,” he said. “I felt the control of my arms slowly fade out of my body.”

As numbness grew in his arms and legs the world began to grow black and he crashed to the ground. Jake awoke disoriented.

“The next thing I remember I am standing on the front steps of my house, some 500 yards away,” he said. “I felt woozy and almost sedated, and I couldn’t think clearly. Time seemed muddled in my head.”

He walked into the house to find he’d been outside an hour – and he’d been injured.

“While I was unconscious the left side of my face was covered in small, precise cuts; my left ear, it was almost severed,” he said.

“It took most of the night for me to tell my parents what happened, and most of the time I kept telling them that I thought the calendar was wrong, it should at least be after 2008,” he said. “To this day, my mother remembers bits of this, mainly because I looked at her and asked point blank, ‘Is the black man president?’”

What happened to Jake? Seizure? Psychological phenomena? Or did Jake accidentally take a brief, four-year step into 2008?

Time slips, like Jake believes occurred to him, have been recorded numerous times in history. English women vacationing in France in 1901 reported stepping into the French Revolution, and two English couples traveling in Spain in the 1970s claim to have stayed at an oddly archaic hotel that was simply gone on their return journey.

Physicists like Albert Einstein, Michio Kaku and Stephen Hawking have all said time travel is theoretically possible; our science just can’t achieve it – yet. But what if nature can?

Patricia Griffin Ress, author of the book “Dangerous Information: The Further Time-Travel Experiments/Studies of Steven L. Gibbs,” is sure of it.

Ress met Gibbs in 1989 and when Gibbs turned on his “time machine” – clouds forming on the ceiling and sparks dancing on the chandelier – Ress became a believer.

Although no one time traveled, something life altering happened to Ress that night. She later caught her favorite movie on TV, “Shane.” However, it wasn’t the same movie she’d seen dozens of times. Dialogue she’d memorized was altered or spoken by different characters. It was the same movie, but it wasn’t.

“It scared me to death,” she said. “If you ask me to see the movie ‘Shane,’ I’d say no thanks.”

She thinks that night Gibbs’ machine somehow altered the past … and the present.

Because of people like Jake and Ress, “time machine” inventors like Gibbs, and my lifelong fascination with time travel, I’ve set up the website “Time Travel Reporting Center.”

If you believe you’ve traveled in time, or have encountered someone seemingly out of time and place, please post your encounters at: timetravelerreportingcenter.blogspot.com. This will hopefully become a database of time travel events and a forum to discuss the validity/reality of time travel.

You also may discover you’re not alone.

Copyright 2011 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt, P.O. Box 501, Maryville, Mo., 64468, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s newest book on the paranormal, “Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters,” is available at Jason’s blog, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com.

9 comments:

If Jake's ear was "almost severed" in 2004, that should be simple to check out. If it wasn't, adios Jake. After 40+ years of following this stuff, I never cease to be amazed at how people give credence, or even attention, to accounts like this when easily verified aspects that scream to be investigated are ignored.

If Jake's ear was "almost severed" in 2004, that should be simple to check out. If there is no evidence to support this, adios to Jake. Having been involved in the paranormal for 40+ years, I never cease to be amazed at how people will give credence to fantastic accounts while aspects that scream to be investigated and confirmed are ignored. "To this day" -- a whole seven years later! -- his mother still remembers "bits" of her son's ear nearly being severed and him babbling about a Black president? Just as an aside, I used to be quite a fan of the 1901 "time slip" incident, but it has been pretty convincingly called into doubt. In fact, I would say that time slips are one of the few aspects of the paranormal where the evidence is so weak that one would have to question whether there is such a phenomenon at all. Hardly in the same category as UFOs, ghosts, apparitions and the other usual suspects.

I also have my doubts about the "magic French hotel" incident. The tourists commented on the archaic clothes worn by others, so wouldn't someone have asked them about their peculiar 1970s attire? Second, the fact that they paid only 19FF for their stay figures prominently in the story. OK, the designs on French coins hadn't changed much over that time, but the fact that the tourists' coins would have been made out of cupronickel instead of silver should have stood out to any clerk accustomed to handling money.

These "time machine' inventors are dangerous. Time travel is far too complicated and too many things could go wrong. If one of these people travels back in time and causes a paradox it could destroy time itself.

These "time machine' inventors are dangerous. Time travel is far too complicated and too many things could go wrong. If one of these people travels back in time and causes a paradox it could destroy time itself.

About Me

Jason Offutt is a syndicated columnist, author, college journalism instructor, and fan of all things strange. His books include the novel, "A Funeral Story," the parody survival book, "How to Kill Monsters Using Common Household Items," the humorous travelogue, "Across a Corn-Swept Land," and four books about the paranormal, "Paranormal Missouri: Show Me Your Monsters," "What Lurks Beyond: The Paranormal In Your Backyard," "Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us," and “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots.” All are available at www.amazon.com.
Jason is available for interviews, speaking engagements and beer festivals. E-mail all serious inquiries to: sjasonoffutt@gmail.com.